How two of YouTube’s most popular content creators are utilizing their massive fanbase to clean up the ocean.

While most influencers with over a million followers may be trying to sell makeup or weightless shakes, two of YouTube’s most influential creators, Mark Rober (20.3 million subscribers) and Mr. Beast (74.1 million subscribers) are calling upon their viewers to aid in a mission to remove 30 million pounds of garbage from the ocean by the new year. This global campaign, named #TeamSeas, was launched on October 29^th, with the promise to remove one pound of trash from the ocean for every one dollar that was donated to the campaign. As of now, they have amassed over $15 million in donations. Barely a couple weeks in, #TeamSeas is already halfway to their goal. So how did they do it? Well, let’s start with who these two guys actually are.

Mr. Beast (real name, Jimmy Donaldson) runs a YouTube channel that center on expensive stunts. Some of his most popular uploads titled, “Tipping Pizza Delivery Guys $10,000”, “I Put 100 Million Orbeez In My Friend’s Backyard”, and “I Gave A Homeless Man A Home”. With most of his subscribers being under the age of 18, his content has been considered a positive influence on Gen Z. He is one of the highest paid YouTubers to date, and his ongoing donations to various people and charities has coined him the title of “YouTube’s biggest philanthropist”. Mark Rober, is also a very successful humanitarian. He is a former engineer of NASA, that now spends his time making videos related to science and inventing. His entertaining yet educational videos are wildly popular, with some of the most viewed including, “Glitter Bomb vs Porch Pirates”, “Backyard Squirrel Maze”, and “World’s Largest Jello Pool”.

Rober and Mr. Beast are no strangers to charity, in fact, this isn’t even their first rodeo together. Back in 2020, they launched a similar campaign to raise $20 million to plant 20 million trees. With the success of #TeamTrees, they decided set a higher goal for #TeamSeas. These are the ways in which they spread awareness so efficiently. First, they teamed up with over a hundred influential YouTubers. #TeamSeas is not only backed by famous creators that include Hank Green, Physics Girl, MKBHD, Colin and Samir, and Safiya Nygaard, but every creator has made their own video, in their own signature style, to raise awareness for the campaign. Rober and Mr. Beast have also partnered with The Ocean Cleanup, where half of the donations will be allocated to. Rober featured their non-profit in his campaign’s announcement video titled, “This Robot Eats Trash”, to show off the company’s invention called, FRED, a solar-powered, semi-autonomous marine robot capable of collecting marine plastic pollution without the need for fossil fuels or a human crew. It can optimized to clean trash from any type of water, and #TeamSeas are hoping the success of their campaign will also bring these inventions to the forefront of environmental activism.

If you’d like to donate to the cause, visit teamseas.org.